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The Internet Businesses The Almighty Buck

Cable Companies Reject Tiered Pricing Model 300

Posted by timothy from the just-you-wait dept.
The Lynxpro submits this Investor's Business Daily article carried on Yahoo!, writing "It details how the Cable Companies are resisting a pricing this competition with DSL providers by resisting tiered pricing models. The article highlights how Time Warner Cable and Comcast are both bringing access speeds back to 3Mbps without any price increases. What the article fails to mention is that is the very speed rate @Home offered before going into bankruptcy. The cable companies formerly partnered with @Home reduced access speeds when they resumed their own services in the wake of the @Home implosion." I wonder if (low-speed) Internet access will ever be just another basic-cable feature.
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Cable Companies Reject Tiered Pricing Model More

Cable Companies Reject Tiered Pricing Model

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  • Basic Internet w/cable? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Renraku ( 518261 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:25PM (#7089798) Homepage
    That's a pretty good idea.

    Make basic cable come with a username/password and leave support at that. No tech support, no customer service, just a low speed (100k down, 30k up or something) thing for users of whatever cable service. If you want tech/CS/more speed, you'll pay the premium!

    • Re:Basic Internet w/cable? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:58PM (#7090121)
      Make basic cable come with a username/password and leave support at that. No tech support, no customer service, just a low speed (100k down, 30k up or something) thing for users of whatever cable service. If you want tech/CS/more speed, you'll pay the premium!

      The very people who would use that are most in need of support, etc.

      Installation, configuration, "how do I". Maybe once PC's become as easy to use as a TV will that work. Maybe.
      • Just stick a DHCP server on the cable box - if you're using the basic cable internet service, you probably havn't got a network to screw up with it. So long as you make sure it's simple enough to disable the DHCP server if neccesary, it seems like a solution to me.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Probably not even then. You do realize that most cable companies have a customer support department that provides basic tech support for the cable boxes, right? Anything they can't fix over the phone, they send out a tech.
      • Maybe once PC's become as easy to use as a TV will that work. Maybe.

        Maybe not. Had a customer support meeting today to review what our broadband operation is dealing with. The top ten?

        - I lost my password (pppoe logins). Need reset
        - I can't type my password right
        - My Internet doesn't work (something unplugged, someone goofed up IP settings, etc)
        - Virus/Trojan/Worm infections
        - Pop-Up annoyances and requests to tell the Internet to stop sending them to the user
        - Home network disasters
        - Microsoft Word, Exc

  • @Home was slower (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rruvin ( 583160 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:26PM (#7089811)
    I'm in Canada and had Rogers@Home before @Home folded and Rogers took over running its portion of the network.

    The speed was never 3 mbps; it was 1.5 at best.

    These days, of course, while the advertised speed is still 1.5, I'm lucky to get 800 kbps. Repeated phone calls to Rogers have resulted in absolutely no action, and I'm considering switching to DSL.

    • "The speed was never 3 mbps; it was 1.5 at best."

      I had 4 megabits from @Home in Portland Oregon from 2 different apartments.

      Damn I miss those days.
    • As the subject says, depends on the node your on. I'm also on rogers, and before they slashed everyone back to 1.5Mbps I used to get at "best" 2710kbps, now the best I've pulled is 1305kbps this is on non-docsis, normally I'll pull around 800-1100kbps. I'm on a TCM200 actually, but they are starting to do a test run on the non-docsis modems bringing them back up the to the 3000kbps range, in short periods in different area's. The best I've seen since their "testing" has begun is 1900kbps.

      I won't say rog
    • Ive got rogers cable, and I regularly go over 2.5Mbps. Recently, I downloaded 1.8 Gigs (3 isos) in about 50 minutes. You do the math.

      By the way, sympatico residential DSL is capped at one Meg here in Canada. You can get the 2.2 Meg corporate package for approaching $80 a month.

      Oh, and if you stick with rogers, they're soon going to have a 5 meg package availible to both corporate and residential clients for about $80 a month. At least thats the rumour from my friend whos wife works in that department
      • So, go iStop or THT.net if you can get it. 3MB DSL, $70/mo.

        Or get a killer connection from MCI (UUNET).

        Roughly $600/mo gets you 3MB/768K bridged DSL with a netblock and a 1605.

    • It isn't the technology (Score:3, Informative)

      by msobkow ( 48369 )
      I pay for and get 1.5 down, 1.0 up with Access Cable in Regina, SK. I had nothing but problems with Rogers in the GTA, with weekly downtimes of 20-36 hours, very poor download, and pathetic upload speeds. And this was on a shub with a whole 7 users, much less the 20+ that they later started rolling. If you actually want the bandwidth, you have to get Roger's commercial links, but make sure you check the fine print on the SLA before signing up. The whole point of a commercial link is to get a static IP a

    • Let's try that again (Score:3, Informative)

      by msobkow ( 48369 )

      I pay for and get 1.5 down, 1.0 up with Access Cable in Regina, SK. I had nothing but problems with Rogers in the GTA, with weekly downtimes of 20-36 hours, very poor download, and pathetic upload speeds. And this was on a shub with a whole 7 users, much less the 20+ that they later started rolling.

      If you actually want the bandwidth, you have to get Roger's commercial links, but make sure you check the fine print on the SLA before signing up. The whole point of a commercial link is to get a static IP and

  • Let's take a step back... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by moehoward ( 668736 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:27PM (#7089822)
    I've been using alternative providers in the past 5 years. What is cable like these days in terms of services? Are you allowed to host at all? Do they offer a tier for business users who want to host or is hosting or running anything on any port just plain disallowed?

    I guess I'd like to compare apples to apples when comparing to DSL or broadband wireless.

    What are outages like? How often? How long do they last? What's the "real" upload speed vs. download speed? How are ping times to common sites as compared to other types of services?

    I think we can use a quick discussion of these topics just so we're all on the same page.

    I left the cable world because of many/all of these issues. I still see people struggling with them. What's it really like with cable, though? Do I just have a few bad experiences?

  • Nice non-sequitur (Score:5, Funny)

    by Distan ( 122159 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:27PM (#7089826)
    Didja notice at the end of the article:

    The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) has asked broadband service providers to crack down on subscribers that illegally share music over the Internet.

    Other than the tenuous link to upload speeds, that had nothing to do with the rest of the news story. It may just as well ended with:

    Many broadband subscribers use their connection to view pornography. The Pope, who once watched cable television, is opposed to pornography.

  • Competition (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:28PM (#7089832) Homepage Journal
    Hrmmm. I really like the idea of basic cable coming with internet access. This sort of thing was what deregulation was supposed to be about. More products for cheaper given the open competition. Rather what has happened ever since cable deregulation has been a steady increase in the price of cable (from $9.00 to almost $50.00). And while the number of channels has increased, I am still getting the same channels I always watched, but my cable company has bundled in lots of shopping channels I don't want and I don't want to pay for. How difficult is it to simply give me the products I want to pay for? Give me 1) Broadband internet access 2) the History channel 3) the Learning channel 4) Discovery 5) CNN's 6)CSPAN 7)FoodTV 8) Speedvision 9) ESPN and perhaps a few others. The rest is just noise that I don't want to pay for and never watch.

    So, at most 15 channels plus broadband should run what $25-30? They can have the other 70 channels.

    • So, at most 15 channels plus broadband should run what $25-30? They can have the other 70 channels.

      Home shopping channels pay for the privilage of piping their crap into your homes.

      Don't get them, and the cost will rise - at least its easier not to watch than ads WHICH HAVE THE DAMN VOLUME TURNED UP. Even the BBC do that now :o(

    • Hrmmm. I really like the idea of basic cable coming with internet access.



      It's actually the reverse: Right after Comcast bought AT&T, they raised the rate of everyone who had a cable modem and no cable by $14. So your high speed internet comes with Basic Cable for only $6 extra!


      Since I don't have a TV, that's not very useful for me. Presumably they were trying to smack DishTV users...

    • Re:Competition (Score:5, Informative)

      by guacamolefoo ( 577448 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @08:42PM (#7090479) Homepage Journal
      How difficult is it to simply give me the products I want to pay for? Give me 1) Broadband internet access 2) the History channel 3) the Learning channel 4) Discovery 5) CNN's 6)CSPAN 7)FoodTV 8) Speedvision 9) ESPN and perhaps a few others. The rest is just noise that I don't want to pay for and never watch.

      So, at most 15 channels plus broadband should run what $25-30? They can have the other 70 channels.

      Something that you may not be aware of is that many channels are part of package deals with cable companies. If you want CNN, you have to carry TBS. If you want ESPN, you have to carry ESPN2, ABC's family channel thingy, etc.

      Also, the prices charged for individual channels, such as ESPN, are quite high per cable subscriber. You aren't just paying for access to cable -- you are paying for the content as well even if you are just getting basic (since this usually is more than just local channels and shopping channels). Other than the local channels (which must be carried) and the shopping channels (which pay your cable company to be on their system), each channel has a cost to the system that carries it. Not surprisingly, ESPN and CNN are among the most-expensive cable channels because everyone wants them. Throw in the package deals and the cost of the cable plant, and the "basic" cable cost soon gets fairly high.

      Your cable bill can be viewed as several separate and discrete components: cost recovery for the cable plant, overhead (ads, customer services, truck rolls, etc.), profit margin, content costs, and premium content costs (which are recovered by higher charges for premium packages). Municipalities also get money from the deals that they cut from the cable companies to provide service in your area (franchise feess/taxes).

      If you want internet access or better basic cable options, a good idea is to mobilize people significantly in advance of the time that a franchise agreement for your municipality is about to expire. Let your local elected officials know what you think is important and organize a group of people so it's not just one person nagging. More often than you might suspect, the local board in charge of such things will consider your input.

      The local chamber of commerce is a good place to start rallying the troops as well -- many local chambers are in favor of the idea of expanding broadband access, as it helps businesses as well as consumers. They might be willing to agitate with you or at least at the same time as you. If a local board sees people coming out of the woodwork on an issue, they are less likely to rubber stamp whatever is dumped into their laps by the cable company.

      Someone with a better knowledge of the cable industry can fill in the details on component costs better than I can, but this is my general understanding of how things work with cable price policies.

      GF.

  • Frustrating... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) <mikemol@gmail.com> on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:28PM (#7089835) Homepage Journal
    As someone who doesn't have or want cable for television, I find it constantly frustrating that internet access is being bundled with it, and can't be had without at least "basic cable"

    For the record, our TV hooks up to our DVD player and VCR. Just starting on season 6 of STTNG this week. Hope to get DS9 soon.

    • Re:Frustrating... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Phroggy ( 441 ) *
      I can't give up my home phone line for a cell phone, because I'd lose my DSL.

      If you don't want cable TV or a normal phone line, you're pretty much out of luck.

      Needless to say, I'm not a huge fan of the FCC, whom I hold largely responsible for the current state of affairs.

      • Re:Frustrating... (Score:3, Informative)

        by angle_slam ( 623817 )
        Depends on your location. Out in Phoenix, Cox does make available high-speed internet without cable TV.

  • Another option (Score:3, Informative)

    by boatboy ( 549643 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:28PM (#7089841) Homepage
    A few months back, I found a deal with Earthlink's cable service that was about $10 cheaper/mo than Time Warner. Plus you get a much cleaner ISP- better Usenet servers, webmail, dialup access, etc. Funny thing is, the bill still comes from Time Warner with a "Earthlink" line item! Anyway, I've never had much problem with the speed, and haven't got kicked for badwidth over-use (yet).
    • Not to be a stick in the mud, but my only comment on Earthlink is bad customer service. At least in my area (San Diego) they are absolutely useless. They misplaced (??) my credit card number and actually terminated my account before finding it and charging me a whopping $320. I have dealt with a lot of bad business but they are by far the most incompetent (I've had a whole string of jaw droppingly stupid interactions with their support). Of course as a gamer I'd give them a 6.5 (out of 10) bandwidth was goo
  • At least in the Madison, WI area. They bought @home's infastructure here, and I had the 768k service until this week, when they knocked me up to 2MB service at no extra charge.. Bandwidth testers show that I'm getting pretty close to that. yippeee!!

  • Bandwidth has NEVER been cheaper (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bodysurf ( 645983 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:31PM (#7089870)

    "What the article fails to mention is that is the very speed rate @Home offered before going into bankruptcy. "

    That was years ago. Bandwidth has gotten a hell of a lot cheaper, dirt cheap. In fact, pumping photons around the Internet has never been cheaper. Pesos on the dollar to what it used to be.

    DSL is kicking cable's butt, and this is what cable had to do to be competitive. No big surprise here.

    • Not in my area. Cable has almost total coverage and most folks in my county get 3mbps cable and do not have dsl avilable to them. 384k up seems to be the norm also, which isn't too bad. DSL is a total disappointment in the DC area. No coverage and when there is, it's balls expensive for less than I get with cable. And not even necessarily better upstream.

    • Bandwidth is more expensive (Score:4, Insightful)

      by scoove ( 71173 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @08:03PM (#7090148)
      Bandwidth has gotten a hell of a lot cheaper, dirt cheap. In fact, pumping photons around the Internet has never been cheaper.

      Says who? Sprint, UUNET, etc. have all jacked prices. Typical is 10% across the board each year in the past - on top of "old" pricing. Deals for highly discounted wholesale bandwidth are no where as competitive as the peak of dot-com - why? There simply isn't the competition anymore (and not enough people giving it away to make up for a little bit of cost).

      DSL is kicking cable's butt, and this is what cable had to do to be competitive.

      Actually, cable's doing this but for a different reason. Cable operators have generally failed to implement layer two over layer two/three protocols that allow them to rate shape customers effectively. Yes, they do have controls but overall they're pretty raw compared to mechanisms like PPPoE that is more common in DSL land.

      The solution for the cable provides is to solve this by overengineering and using brute force. That's why you'll see 3 Mbps/1 Mbps type profiles, but at 9pm, it takes 25 minutes to download a 5 MByte file or dslreports shows you're running 108kbps down, 72kbps up.

      Likewise, you'll find lots of the cable operators in smaller markets abusing their aggregate to the extreme. Yes, it's 3Mbps local, but a single T1 for all to share leaving town.

      Just don't forget, bandwidth is no different than crude oil - it's very supply/demand driven, and right now, those who've survived to be here today in telecom just won't sell cheap anymore.

      *scoove*

    • Uh...what?? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Atario ( 673917 )
      DSL is kicking cable's butt, and this is what cable had to do to be competitive. No big surprise here.

      By what measure? According to this recent article [pcworld.com] in PCWorld Magazine:
      • There are about double the number of cable modem users as DSL users
      • Cablers are more satisfied than DSLers with their service
      • Cable costs less and is faster
      • Cable is installed faster and with fewer problems

      I don't know about you, but that looks like a slam-dunk for cable. Don't get me wrong, I have no love for the cable monopoli

  • Negativism (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Reckless Visionary ( 323969 ) * on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:33PM (#7089892)
    Congratulations, you found a way to complain about the fact that Comcast is increasing bandwidth at no extra cost. Anyone here think that's a little negative? What happened to the headline "Comcast Reverses Reduction in Bandwidth"? I'm not some pro-big-business-fuck-the-hackers economist or anything, but isn't that a "good thing"? Competition leading to better service at the same price?

    • Re:Negativism (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ReverendRyan ( 582497 )
      The ultimate thing we have to complain about is that after ATTBI took over we went from 4-5Mbits (8Mbits peak) to 1Mbit (1.5Mbit peak), for only $7/mo MORE. Thats right, ATTBI REDUCED our service while charging us MORE. Since Comcast took over for ATTBI, they've upped our download cap a bit, trying to be the "good guy"... But it still stands that we're getting less and paying more than what we signed up for.
      • Yep, that would certainly upset me. I guess it's all about timing. I signed up for the current status quo and find my service being increased at no extra cost, so I guess it's all about perspective.

    • Re:Negativism (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 4iedBandit ( 133211 )

      Congratulations, you found a way to complain about the fact that Comcast is increasing bandwidth at no extra cost. Anyone here think that's a little negative?

      Not really. If you consider the fact that @Home gave me that speed to start with and between ATT and Comcast they've raised my rates twice. Once because I own my cable modem instead of renting theirs, and the second time because I don't want cable TV.

      I'll view this as positive when my rates go down. Don't be fooled. Most people don't use the

    • Re:Negativism (Score:3, Funny)

      by GSloop ( 165220 )
      "Hey, my name's Guido. I want $100 protection racket. I'd normally break both your legs for free, but since Bruno's competing with me now, I'll only sprain your arm and break a few windows."

      "Hey, what's yous gettn so upset about? This here competition thing. It's a good thing - ya hear! I wanna hear some thanks, ya ungrateful prick!"

      *grin*

      Cheers,
      Greg

  • Reality sinking in... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:33PM (#7089895)
    I really think all this represents is them finally admitting that, after over a decade of universal unmetered service, the customers were simply NOT going to accept moving to a metered or tiered plan. I was working for Road Runner tech support when they first began thinking over the idea - the next day was filled with calls from outraged customers (who, granted, were not bright enough to distinguish the numbers for "customer service" and "technical support") screaming at me about how they'd quit if we increased their bill.

    Not fun.

    • I think there's a real difference in the minds of most customers between metered and tiered. Metered is something they won't accept. People prefer unmetered access because they don't like supprise charges and it is percieved (often correctly) as a mathod for screwing them.

      Tiered plans, on the other hand, can and do work. DSL has been doing it for ever. Consumers can (as a whole) deal with the idea that you get more if you pay more, but at any given level it is clear what you are getting for your money.

      I r
  • Actually, when I had @Home for a couple of years they provided 4 Mbits/sec, and more to the point, it was a symmetric four megabits. Comcast may bump me up to 3 Mbits/sec (they haven't yet) but that will still include the backchannel cap at 256 Kbits/sec or thereabouts.

    Regarding "tiered pricing", Comcast describes "Comcast Internet Pro" on their Web site for $95/month, which is just about double the rates for their regular service. It offers a 3.5 Mb/sec. - 384 Kb/sec asymmetric connection, and is (ge

  • Cox has tiered structure (Score:3, Informative)

    by doormat ( 63648 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:34PM (#7089903) Homepage Journal
    $30/mo for 128/128
    $40/mo for 1.5/128
    $50/mo for 3/256

    (assuming you have cable TV) 1 IP, 5 or so email addresses, regular residential crap...

    or... (what I pay for)

    $80/mo for 3/256, 8 real IPs, 1 static IP, no transfer cap, better (business level) tech support

    Cox HSD [cox.com]
    • I think that pricing scheme is local to Las Vegas only, since this link, for Phoenix [cox.com] shows only two price options. The only difference is whether or not you buy the modem.

      As far as I can tell, I have ~3mbs down/256kbs up. It's pretty nice, and I haven't received any complaints about my substantial BitTorrent use.
      • Yea, Vegas has always been the bastard child of Cox's HSD system because it was once owned by a company called Prime Cable, so we had CM service through prime cable, then through Cox. But I really think the pricing scheme here works out really well. $30/mo is good for those who want always on but want to save the $10/mo, For a while the $30/mo plan was $27, and tons of people signed on, but cox got greedy and raised it to $30. What a surprise....

        Plus the guy who runs broadband here knows what he is doing.

  • Double edged sword for cable operators (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ctwxman ( 589366 ) <me@@@geofffox...com> on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:41PM (#7089973) Homepage
    The cable operators face a really difficult choice as far as speed and bandwidth is concerned. Remember, high speed access is only one of the products hey sell. They are also making significant income from pay-per-view and premium channels.

    With higher speed access, some program originators might decide to cut out the cable operators entirely. For instance, my wife and I subscribe to MLB's Philadelphia Phillies broadcast over the Internet. This year, MLB added video, with surprisingly good quality.

    But, with this MLB package, my cable company, as the carrier, gets nothing. If this were a pay-per-view event, they'd be a profit participant. And, who's to say some movie channel or sports channel or any kind of broadcaster or cablecaster might find it more economically viable to cut of the cable middleman and do the same thing?

    This is one reason I worry about cable and telcos as the primary high speed gatekeepers. Telcos have their own issues with VOIP.

    It will be interesting to see this all play out. Will cable companies see it in their best interest to give us this broad pipe only to watch us cut their throats with it?
  • ..just called me the other day to see if I wanted to step mine up to 3Mbps down (512kbps/up). It's only $15/more a month. Their price stratifications look like this: 112k down ($34.99/mo), 500k down ($39.99/mo), 1.5Mbps down ($44.99/mo), 3.0Mbps down ($59.99/mo).

    Pricing found here. [wowway.com]

  • Really fast ;-) (Score:5, Funny)

    by leighklotz ( 192300 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:45PM (#7090006) Homepage
    Last weekend I got a call from Comcast offering me Cable Internet service for an introductory rate of $21.95/mo. I asked how fast and the telecaller said, "Six hundred and thirty five gigabytes." I said, "Per month? Per hour? Per second?" She said, "Per second, sir."

    I asked, "Can I run servers?"
    She said, "Yes sir!"
    I said, "On port 80 and port 25?"
    She said, "On all ports, sir."

    I said, "Before I sign up I'd like to speak to your supervisor to confirm this great deal."

    Sadly, the deal evaporated when I got to speak the the sympathiser, but she was interested in what I wanted. I told her I had 1Mb/1Mb symmetric access and static 8 IP addresses, and she asked what they could do to get me to move to Comcast Cable Internet service. I suggested perhaps symmetric service 1.5Mb/1.5Mb would be nice, or perhaps 3Mb down and a portable Class C netblock to do multi-homing with my current 1Mb SDSL uplink. She wrote it all down and said she'd pass my request along.

    I'm still smarting at the lose of the 635GB/sec downlink for $21.95/mo though!
    • About on the same level as the phone call I had the other day setting up cable internet for my mother. Shes moving to a town with cable internet, so I got her an appointment for hookup the 20th next month. They asked what OS for setup. I said linux. Their like... "huh? Whats that?" Their definition of setup. "Plug in cable modem, plug in ethernet, make sure it works. Download/install 50Mb uneeded software." The stupidist part being that you dont need any of their software to get online, and in fact, the
    • Well the people making sales calls most likely don't have any computer experience. It's unfortunate and I wish we could have some better educated sales employees. However, when 2/3rds of the job is getting screamed at by customers the turn-over rate is pretty high.

  • Impending Broadband Slowdown? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mr. Ophidian Jones ( 653797 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:46PM (#7090018)
    Better would be to focus on the slowdown of American broadband. When it was first rolled out there were no caps whatsoever and it was generally allowed to run at the speed that the equipment could handle. So the average DSL user ran over 3mbit in some cases if they had good lines. Uncapped both directions.

    Then came the abusers and greed of the communications companies and today you see the extreme chokehold on the broadband today. SBC's base package for DSL is 384/128k dn/up compared to Verizon's 768k-1.544M/128k and the cable companies provide service comparable to Verizon.

    New trends are starting to take hold in some areas with Verizon Wireless rolling out EvDO 3G which can run upwards of 2.3M and Verizon Landline (Seperate companies) is testing 2M+ speeds in certain (Lucky) markets with future plans to turn up the dial on broadband.

    While those trends are nice to see you still have many who still have dialup due to cost and some worse off areas still cannot get a better connection than 26600kbps!

    Interestingly people have pointed out monopolies. There is basically 1 telepone company in South Korea. Korean Telecom and a handfull of offshots after other companies were allowed to spring up but I'd say 90% of that country is serviced by KT and TMK there is only one cable company there. So it's questionable if more competition really is the answer (Korea may regulate, the us de-regulates)

    I'm not sure what goes on in Japan but I would suspect nearly the same situation there also but you'll have to understand both countries until very recently had complete conglomerates (Sp?) of many things from electronics to communications systems. Now there is free market competition but not in the manner of how the US Govt mandated AT&T split up those companies were just forced to allow competition to "try" to work their way into a established system. Which probably will work becuase the exec's of those companies realize given choice people will pick the better company that provides them value.
  • And I'm still smarting from the slap in the face I got from AT&T in the wake of @Home's death throes. When you reduce someone's service by a factor of 2.66 (more, if you count the upload cap I have now), and then, with an attitude of arrogant magnanimity, decide not to raise rates right away (although they did fairly quickly anyway) and then sell your entire operation to an outfit like Comcast, you do piss people off. Even if Comcast does give me 3 Mbit/sec, I still won't be where I was and I'll still

  • @HOME 3mb? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hysterik ( 4400 )
    I don't think this is quite right. I was an @home customer, and my rate was always 1.5 down, 128k up. Since I've been moved over to comcast, I'm now getting 256k up, and soon to get 3 down. I'm not complaining until they start forcing me to pay for cable tv.

  • It details how the Cable Companies are resisting a pricing this competition with DSL providers by resisting tiered pricing models.

    Erm... I keep trying, but I can't degarbleate this. A little help, please?
  • That's odd, I'm on Charter Pipeline, and they have 3 tiers. Not that I'd know - they never advertised the fact to me, and I probably would've ponied up more when they went from @Home's 5mbps(!) to their current 1mpbs (and only 768 if you're a new customer), if they'd only told me.

    However, I got a letter in the mail last week that said, basically, "since you put up with our abysmal service and frequent drop-outs, we've upgraded you to 2mbps until March 2004". Too bad Usenet is still capped at 256 (2x128kb

  • Coincidence (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Orgasmatron ( 8103 )
    What the article fails to mention is that is the very speed rate @Home offered before going into bankruptcy. The cable companies formerly partnered with @Home reduced access speeds when they resumed their own services in the wake of the @Home implosion.

    @Home folded because they are completely worthless. It is easily within the capability of any cable company to run a cable modem ISP. Once that secret got out, @Home's days were numbered.

    @Home was a great idea at first. They had the skills to run
  • What about upstream speed? That's what really matters (if we delicately avoid the whole issue of ping times). Not to mention, what's the use of 3Mbps when you're capped on a daily or monthly basis?

    Here's what I think: Cable is getting their asses handed to them by DSL, and they need more marketing to "differentiate" them from DSL (ie, we're faster!!). Then they can (technically correctly) claim this, and win converts.

    I tell ya, I'm about *this* much away from dropping my Comcast connection, since

    1. I cannot

  • Charter Communications (Score:4, Interesting)

    by _aa_ ( 63092 ) <j&uaau,ws> on Monday September 29, 2003 @08:35PM (#7090420) Homepage Journal
    I live in (or around) St. Louis, MO, USA. My area is blessed with the presence of Charter Communications [charter.com]. They are a cable company that does offer tier based pricing.

    Service plans (select one)
    384 K $29.99/month
    2 M $39.99/month

    There's actually a 3rd tier in the middle they don't tell you about on their website. I'm not certain what the specifics are on it. But the tiers are listed as; Bronze (Maximum-crap), Silver (Marginal-crap), and Gold (Minimal-crap).

    Here's what they don't tell you: All upstreams, on all tiers are capped at 150 kilo-bit per second. Regardless of the tier you're paying for, you cannot buy more upstream. This has annoyed me for years. Oh how I long for the days of @home. I am curious why the upstreams are capped as they are. I don't understand why the upstreams are limited as they are. I think that it might be to curb child pornographers and data pir8s, but those activities are illegal. It's not up to my cable provider to thwart such activity.

    It makes me wonder what they're doing with all that extra bandwidth. Their mail servers likely take in significantly more than they put out. Their web servers likely don't consume a relativly large amount of bandwidth. They must have a massive surplus of upstream that they're paying for anyway.

  • @Home died becuase they were not taking in enough money per user. The cable companies got the biggest cut and @home got around 10 dollars per customer. They asked for a increase to 13 dollars and were denied by all the cable companies and thus they declared bankruptcy.

    Speed has nothing to do with the price. 98% of the users will always download a average amount of data per month with a few fluctuations here and there. Bandwidth is becoming cheaper due to the push for more data based services and you'll

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